News, Local history and Thanet issues from Michael's Bookshop in Ramsgate see www.michaelsbookshop.com I publish over 150 books about the history of this area click here to look at them.

Sunday, 16 February 2014

The Harbour Chocolate Lounge and a Sunday Ramble

What a difference a day makes, I think I had forgotten
Ramsgate’s potential for mild sunny winter days with all the rain this year, it
was so pleasant to be able to be outside in the sunshine.

The intended Waitrose shopping mission disintegrated into
getting a French stick and some cheese and having a picnic lunch on the
westcliff.

We went on to have drinks at The Harbour Chocolate Lounge
which were very good, I did a quick pen sketch which was surprisingly difficult
because of the light difference looking in front of me to looking down on to
the paper.

Some strange activity on the Pleasurama site part of which
is batons on the great wall which look as though they will make it difficult to
add more pictures.

I am not sure what the developer is doing on the site but
some of the weeds have been cleared adjacent to the cliff façade exposing the
subsoil under the foundations. I have reservations about the cliff façade for a
number of reasons and would have liked to have seen the repair work that should
have been carried our as result of the survey two years ago, done before other
activity adjacent to the base of the façade.

My long term concern for the façade is one of public
expense mainly because the gap between the development for which planning
consent still stands and the cliff façade doesn’t seem wide enough to allow for
economic maintenance. As the cost of maintaining the structure falls on TDC and
therefore our council tax, I think we will be in for some very big bills during
the life of the development if it is ever built to the approved plans.

12 comments:

Harvey says the only work currently sanctioned is the strengthening of the boundary fence however it looks like they are creating a road against the cliff for access via the slope road instead of using Harbour parade

Barry my take on this one is that while SFP hold the leases there wouldn’t be anything the council could do to restrict them from doing work there towards the completion of the development.

I think the big issue with Pleasurama is that the planning consent still stands and aspects of it could be very expensive for local people for many years to come.

As far as I can tell all of the liability for maintaining the cliff and the sea defence falls to the council for the hundred yearish life of the development. Now in normal circumstances with an experienced developer and a cautious council this wouldn’t be much of an issue but with Pleasurama where the council’s desire to get this development built exceeded normal common sense, councillors and officers have been forced into defensive positions that it is difficult for them to get out of.

As far as I can see the council has guaranteed both the cliff and the sea defence in perpetuity and the developer and the developers contractor were intending to build based on these guarantees. The other side of this coin is that the environment agency’s costal engineer has strongly recommended a flood risk assessment and the senior geotechnical engineer who wrote the 2005 report for the council’s external civil engineering consultants describes the cliff façade as having a short serviceable life.

So far the sea defence hasn’t given any problem although with it facing southeast it is a very good thing that the recent storms were blowing from the south west, the cliff façade on the other hand has had one major repair since the council spent £900.000 on it and there has been a further survey two years ago with a considerable schedule of work that hasn’t even been started yet.

If one applies some imagination to the difficulties of dealing with repairs to a 70ft high concrete structure parts of which are four feet thick that is 12ft away from 70ft high building it may be possible to see where I am coming from.

Unfortunately TDC seem to be in a habit of making expensive mistakes from leasing multi story car parks, leasing prime seafront property or telling ferry companies that they can have a payment holiday. all ineptitude on a very expensive scale with the local tax payer picking up the bill

John the crux of the issue at every level has been finance, I don’t see how the developer would get finance for a new build on an ea designated high risk flood zone on the foreshore without a flood risk assessment and if they ever did and the development was built, I can’t see how any potential purchaser could get a mortgage.

From both the developer’s and the council’s point of view the problem here is that the site was designated high risk after the planning application was approved, so although the flood risk assessment isn’t mandatory there just are no new builds on flood zones without one.

If no one could get a mortgage it seems highly unlikely the developer would build only to be left with a white elephant. Seems to me we are dragging over old coals, flood risks, avalanche etc, all well covered before when it is just a case of waiting for the time to run out and TDC can recover the leases.

I like your pictures of your food on trips out, I no longer like eating out because of my disability wheelchair etc and it is nice to see others enjoying stuff. I readt the article on the Daily Mail site and find it odd that chefs are asking people not to photograph the food are they ashamed of the prices they charge?

Please note comments that may be libellous, comments that may be construed as offensive, anonymous derogatory comments about real people, comments baiting internet trolls, comments saying that an anonymous comment was made by a named real person, boring comments and spam comments, comments in CAPs will be deleted. Playground stuff like calling real people by their time stamp or surname alone, referring to groups as gangs, old duffers and so on will result in deletion. Comment that may be construed as offensive to minority groups is not allowed here either, so think before you write it, remember that the internet is a public place, that it is very difficult to be truly anonymous and that everyone who uses it leaves a trail of some sort. Also note the facility to leave anonymous comment will be turned of during periods when I am unable to monitor comment, this will not affect people commenting who are signed on to their blogger accounts. When things are particularly difficult on the commercial spam front I may turn comment moderation on for periods.

If you feel that someone has left a comment that is offensive and directed at you personally please email me (link on the sidebar) asking to have it removed, you will need to tell which post and the date and timestamp of the offending comment. Please do not reply to the offending comment as I will assume you continuing the dialogue as meaning that you want the comments left there.

Here are the links to the pictures of Ramsgate carnival 201 on my camera card http://michaelsbookshop.com/717/id10.htm http://mi...

recent comments

Local history facilities.

Much of the local history I publish is available for free on this blog, in some cases I have linked whole books to blog postings, if you want a printed copy of one of the books I publish click here postage is free to UK addresses.

Alternatively you can of course come to my bookshop in Ramsgate and browse them and about 30,000 secondhand books on other subjects, remember we close Thursdays and Sundays.